Sen. Al Franken Hit With Second Groping Allegation
November 20, 2017 Susan Davis
Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken is facing a second allegation that he groped a woman without consent while her husband took a photo of her with the senator at the Minnesota State Fair in 2010.

Franken "pulled me in really close, like awkward close, and as my husband took the picture, he put his hand full-fledged on my rear," said Lindsay Menz, who told her story to CNN. "It wasn't around my waist. It wasn't around my hip or side. It was definitely on my butt," she said.

The Post published two photos: one showing Franken touching Huffington as the pair stood back to back, and the other showing Franken grabbing her breast as he hugged her from behind.....

Huffington said the photos were intended to reference a comedy sketch the two had performed together.

"The notion that there was anything inappropriate in this photo shoot is truly absurd," Huffington said in a statement, according to the Post.

"Al and I did a comedic sketch for Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect called Strange Bedfellows, in which the whole point, as the name makes clear, was that we were doing political commentary from bed," Huffington told the Post. "This shoot was looking back at the sketch, and we were obviously hamming it up for comedic effect."

"I’ve been great friends with Al and his wife Franni for over 20 years and there has never been anything remotely inappropriate in our interactions," she said.

Two women have accused the Minnesota senator of sexual misconduct. Lindsay Menz, 33, told CNN that Franken grabbed her buttocks when she posed for a picture with him at the Minnesota State Fair in 2010. Leeann Tweeden said Franken "forcibly kissed" then later pretended to grope her while she was sleeping during a USO tour in the Middle East to entertain U.S. troops in 2006.

Here is how the Post's unnamed source described the encounter:

"Franken was clowning around, but it really isn’t funny," said a source from the shoot. "That’s his tactic, pretend like it’s all a big joke. Arianna was pushing his hands away. He was groping her. There was some fun attached to it, but she wasn’t enjoying it. She definitely told him to stop and pushed him away ...

On “The Lead," Tapper shared the photos and stories of 12 women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, harassment and assault between the 1980s and 2000s.

Tapper called out the president for attacking Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) over his own sexual misconduct allegations but maintaining that the women who have accused Trump are lying.

“In Trump’s world, we’re supposed to believe the very compelling claims of Leeann Tweeden,” Tapper said, referring to Franken’s accuser. “But we are not supposed to believe these women — at least 12 women who have brought forward claims, on the record, about President Trump’s past behavior.”

Trump repeatedly denied the claims during his campaign. The White House has said that its official stance is that the women who have accused him of kissing and groping them without consent, as he bragged of doing on a leaked "Access Hollywood" tape, are lying.

“Total fabrication, the events never happened,” Trump said during the campaign. “All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”

Tapper noted that the only suit filed so far has been one of the accusers suing Trump for defamation.....

Eight women say Charlie Rose sexually harassed them — with nudity, groping and lewd calls
By Irin Carmon and Amy Brittain November 20
Eight women have told The Washington Post that longtime television host Charlie Rose made unwanted sexual advances toward them, including lewd phone calls, walking around naked in their presence, or groping their breasts, buttocks or genital areas.

The women were employees or aspired to work for Rose at the “Charlie Rose” show from the late 1990s to as recently as 2011. They ranged in age from 21 to 37 at the time of the alleged encounters. Rose, 75, whose show airs on PBS and Bloomberg TV, also co-hosts “CBS This Morning” and is a contributing correspondent for “60 Minutes.”

There are striking commonalities in the accounts of the women, each of whom described their interactions with Rose in multiple interviews with The Post. For all of the women, reporters interviewed friends, colleagues or family members who said the women had confided in them about aspects of the incidents. Three of the eight spoke on the record....

Most of the women said Rose alternated between fury and flattery in his interactions with them. Five described Rose putting his hand on their legs, sometimes their upper thigh, in what they perceived as a test to gauge their reactions. Two said that while they were working for Rose at his residences or were traveling with him on business, he emerged from the shower and walked naked in front of them. One said he groped her buttocks at a staff party....

She said she told Yvette Vega, Rose’s longtime executive producer, about the calls.

“I explained how he inappropriately spoke to me during those times,” Godfrey-Ryan said. “She would just shrug and just say, ‘That’s just Charlie being Charlie.’ ”

In a statement to The Post, Vega said she should have done more to protect the young women on the show.

“I should have stood up for them,” said Vega, 52, who has worked with Rose since the show was created in 1991. “I failed. It is crushing. I deeply regret not helping them.”

Godfrey-Ryan said that when Rose learned she had confided to a mutual friend about his conduct, he fired her....

The environment brimmed with the young and potentially vulnerable, hungry for scarce television jobs. “There are so few jobs,” said one of the women who said Rose groped her. “You know if you don’t behave a certain way, there’s someone else behind you.”

Rose traveled frequently, jetting off to interview world leaders across the globe and splitting time between two New York City residences and homes in Bellport — on Long Island — and North Carolina. Often at his side was a rotating cast of young assistants and producers.

The young women who were hired by the show were sometimes known as “Charlie’s Angels,” two former employees said. Rose frequently gave unsolicited shoulder rubs to several of them, behavior referred to among employees as “the crusty paw,” a former employee said....

Charlie Rose Accused of Crude Sexual Advances by Multiple Women
By KIM BARKER and ELLEN GABLER NOV. 20, 2017
After allegations surfaced Monday that the longtime television host Charlie Rose made crude sexual advances toward multiple women who worked on his show over a dozen years, CBS suspended him from its morning program and PBS announced that it would no longer distribute his long-running nightly interview show.

Eight women, including three who talked on the record, told The Washington Post that he made lewd phone calls to them, walked around naked in front of them or groped them. In addition, two women told The New York Times that he made unwanted advances toward them, trying to kiss them without their permission. The women spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared Mr. Rose’s power over their careers and what some described as his volatile temper.

In a statement, Mr. Rose said he did not believe all the allegations were accurate but also apologized.

“It is essential that these women know I hear them and that I deeply apologize for my inappropriate behavior. I am greatly embarrassed. I have behaved insensitively at times, and I accept responsibility for that,” he said. “I always felt that I was pursuing shared feelings, even though I now realize I was mistaken.”....

Current and former employees of the “Charlie Rose” show described an occasionally hostile work environment, with no human-resources department and Mr. Rose essentially running his own fief. Although the show operated out of the Bloomberg building, employees of “Charlie Rose” had little recourse if they had problems.

After Mr. Rose moved his broadcast from the PBS station to the Bloomberg offices, he got rid of many of the senior staff members, former employees said, instead hiring interns as staff members and then recruiting new interns. Eventually, he settled a class-action wage lawsuit filed by former interns.